Search results for "Api"
showing 10 items of 8586 documents
Response to Letter to the Editor by Dr Rios and Dr Cardoso
2020
We have read with interest the letter of Dr Rios and Dr Cardoso about our manuscript entitled “Krapina atlases suggest a high prevalence of anatomical variations in the first cervical vertebra of Neanderthals, ” by Palancar et al. (2020). Here, we respond to the issues raised in the Letter to the Editor by Dr Rios and Dr Cardoso
Inhibition of tetraspanin functions impairs human papillomavirus and cytomegalovirus infections
2018
Tetraspanins are suggested to regulate the composition of cell membrane components and control intracellular transport, which leaves them vulnerable to utilization by pathogens such as human papillomaviruses (HPV) and cytomegaloviruses (HCMV) to facilitate host cell entry and subsequent infection. In this study, by means of cellular depletion, the cluster of differentiation (CD) tetraspanins CD9, CD63, and CD151 were found to reduce HPV16 infection in HeLa cells by 50 to 80%. Moreover, we tested recombinant proteins or peptides of specific tetraspanin domains on their effect on the most oncogenic HPV type, HPV16, and HCMV. We found that the C-terminal tails of CD63 and CD151 significantly i…
Coupling News Sentiment with Web Browsing Data Improves Prediction of Intra-Day Price Dynamics
2015
The new digital revolution of big data is deeply changing our capability of understanding society and forecasting the outcome of many social and economic systems. Unfortunately, information can be very heterogeneous in the importance, relevance, and surprise it conveys, affecting severely the predictive power of semantic and statistical methods. Here we show that the aggregation of web users' behavior can be elicited to overcome this problem in a hard to predict complex system, namely the financial market. Specifically, our in-sample analysis shows that the combined use of sentiment analysis of news and browsing activity of users of Yahoo! Finance greatly helps forecasting intra-day and dai…
Insecticidal spectrum and mode of action of the Bacillus thuringiensis Vip3Ca insecticidal protein.
2016
The Vip3Ca protein, discovered in a screening of Spanish collections of Bacillus thuringiensis, was known to be toxic to Chrysodeixis chalcites, Mamestra brassicae and Trichoplusia ni. In the present study, its activity has been tested with additional insect species and we found that Cydia pomonella is moderately susceptible to this protein. Vip3Ca (of approximately 90 kDa) was processed to an approximately 70 kDa protein when incubated with midgut juice in all tested species. The kinetics of proteolysis correlated with the susceptibility of the insect species to Vip3Ca. The activation was faster to slower in the following order: M. brassicae (susceptible), Spodoptera littoralis (moderately…
Increased survival of honeybees in the laboratory after simultaneous exposure to low doses of pesticides and bacteria
2018
Recent studies of honeybees and bumblebees have examined combinatory effects of different stressors, as insect pollinators are naturally exposed to multiple stressors. At the same time the potential influences of simultaneously occurring agricultural agents on insect pollinator health remain largely unknown. Due to different farming methods, and the drift of applied agents and manure, pollinators are most probably exposed to insecticides but also bacteria from organic fertilizers at the same time. We orally exposed honeybee workers to sub-lethal doses of the insecticide thiacloprid and two strains of the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis, which can occur in manure from farming animals. Our re…
The Cytoskeletal Adaptor Obscurin-Like 1 Interacts with the Human Papillomavirus 16 (HPV16) Capsid Protein L2 and Is Required for HPV16 Endocytosis.
2016
ABSTRACT The human papillomavirus (HPV) capsid protein L2 is essential for viral entry. To gain a deeper understanding of the role of L2, we searched for novel cellular L2-interacting proteins. A yeast two-hybrid analysis uncovered the actin-depolymerizing factor gelsolin, the membrane glycoprotein dysadherin, the centrosomal protein 68 (Cep68), and the cytoskeletal adaptor protein obscurin-like 1 protein (OBSL1) as putative L2 binding molecules. Pseudovirus (PsV) infection assays identified OBSL1 as a host factor required for gene transduction by three oncogenic human papillomavirus types, HPV16, HPV18, and HPV31. In addition, we detected OBSL1 expression in cervical tissue sections and no…
Pharmacokinetics of a sustained release formulation of PDGFβ-receptor directed carrier proteins to target the fibrotic liver
2018
Liver fibrogenesis is associated with excessive production of extracellular matrix by myofibroblasts that often leads to cirrhosis and consequently liver dysfunction and death. Novel protein-based antifibrotic drugs show high specificity and efficacy, but their use in the treatment of fibrosis causes a high burden for patients, since repetitive and long-term parenteral administration is required as most proteins and peptides are rapidly cleared from the circulation. Therefore, we developed biodegradable polymeric microspheres for the sustained release of proteinaceous drugs. We encapsulated the drug carrier pPB-HSA, which specifically binds to the PDGF beta R that is highly upregulated on a…
Expanding the clinical spectrum of mosaic BRAF skin phenotypes
2021
BRAF postzygotic activating mutations have been found in 50% of cases of syringocystadenoma papilliferum (SCAP)1 and in phacomatosis pigmentokeratotica (PPK)2,3 , also possibly caused by HRAS4 mutations. BRAF is a RAS-activating serine/threonine kinase of the MAP kinase pathway, resulting in cell growth and proliferation. BRAF mutations, particularly p.(Val600Glu), are frequently identified in melanoma and other human cancers5 . We report clinical presentations of three patients with postzygotic BRAF mutations in affected skin, identified by next generation sequencing (NGS).
Somatic copy number alterations are associated with EGFR amplification and shortened survival in patients with primary glioblastoma.
2019
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common malignant primary tumor of the central nervous system. With no effective therapy, the prognosis for patients is terrible poor. It is highly heterogeneous and EGFR amplification is its most frequent molecular alteration. In this light, we aimed to examine the genetic heterogeneity of GBM and to correlate it with the clinical characteristics of the patients. For that purpose, we analyzed the status of EGFR and the somatic copy number alterations (CNAs) of a set of tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes. Thus, we found GBMs with high level of EGFR amplification, low level and with no EGFR amplification. Highly amplified tumors showed histological features of…
Thyroid Cancer in the Pediatric Age in Sicily: Influence of the Volcanic Environment.
2017
Background/Aim: Pediatric thyroid cancer (TC) is rare but its incidence is increasing. We analyzed incidence and characteristics of pediatric TC in Sicily and comparatively evaluated data from the volcanic and non-volcanic areas. Materials and Methods: All incident pediatric (0-19 years) TCs in Sicily between 2002-2009 were analyzed for the area of residence and compared to data for adults. Results: A total of 54 differentiated TCs (DTC) and nine medullary TCs were diagnosed in Sicily in children between 2002-2009. DTC age standardized rate for the world population (ASRw) was 0.8/105 in females and 0.2/105 in males, with a higher incidence in the volcanic area (ASRw=1.4/105 in females, 0.5/…